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Holland… no, not the country you’re thinking of, but Holland, Michigan.
Nicole Kidman (Lioness) is much the same as she usually as, as housewife and home econmics teacher Nancy Vandergroot, in a town where everyone acts as if they’re actually in the Dutch country and in traditional dress. To her, it’s ultimate utopia for her and her family, including husband and optician, Fred (Matthew Macfadyen – Deadpool And Wolverine).
However, she starts twigging that things might not be all as calm as it should be, since she thinks Fred’s having an affair, whilst just pretending to be away on business.
Before too long, Gael García Bernal (The Mother) enters the chat as teacher Dave Delgado, who asks a pupil if they’re having problems at home, since something appears to be amiss.
However, while there’s repartee between Nancy and Dave, their background isn’t explained or even hinted at, and which makes me feel like this is the sequel to a film I missed that went into detail about them.
40 mins in, I still had absolutely no idea what’s going on with Nancy occasionally thinking weird things are afoot and investigates, but as it’s 1996 – and before the internet was commonplace – she has to resort to the internet of 30 years ago: microfiche.
For all the good that does, though, since it takes 75 minutes before anything actually happens of note. Maybe she should’ve spent time hunting down a better script?
For me, a bigger mystery comes early on: Why’s Nancy watching Mrs Doubtfire on a TV with an anamorphic squeeze on, so everyone looks tall and thin?
Holland has a couple of ideas and scenes that feel like they were copied from ’70s thrillers that a long in the past, along with another 90 minutes of random filler that was generated by AI, and doesn’t link together in any coherent way, such as one of those ‘exquisite corpse’ pictures, where one person draws a head, folds the paper over, someone else draws the body, folds it over, and so on, leading to a final output where you look at it and think: “What the hell is that?”
Meanwhile, Mr Bernal just disappears when the plot decides he’s no longer relevant to proceedings, as do various other plot points that were thrown in and then just get forgotten about.
Yes, whoever commissioned this needs their head read. It makes no sense, and is a complete waste of everyone’s time and effort. After In The Lost Lands in the cinema, March has served up another early Christmas turkey, and it makes January’s You’re Cordially Invited seem like Oscar-winning material by comparison.
NOTE: There is NO mid- or post-credits scene.
Thanks to our friends at Prime Video for the screener prior to release.
Holland is on Prime Video from tomorrow. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 108 minutes
Release date: March 27th 2025
Studio: Amazon Prime Video
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Rating: 0/10
Director: Mimi Cave
Producers: Kate Churchill, Peter Dealbert, Nicole Kidman, Bart Lipton, Per Saari
Screenplay: Andrew Sodroski
Music: Alex Somers
Cast:
Nancy Vandergroot: Nicole Kidman
Dave Delgado: Gael García Bernal
Fred Vandergroot: Matthew Macfadyen
Harry Vandergroot: Jude Hill
Squiggs Graumann: Jeff Pope
Shawn Graumann: Isaac Krasner
Lennon: Lennon Parham
Candy Deboer: Rachel Sennott
Holland Cop: Chris Witaske
Scott: River Brooks
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.